Spatiotemporal Evolution of Landscape Patterns and Their Driving Forces Under Optimal Granularity and the Extent at the County and the Environmental Functional Regional Scales

Abstract

Research on the evolution and driving forces of landscape patterns can provide important support for ecological governance decision-making. However, the heterogeneity of landscape patterns at the microscale (grain size and extent) and the enforceability of the zoning scale at the macroscale deserve more attention. The optimal grain size (30 ×30 m) and the extent (500 m) for landscape pattern research were obtained by analyzing the fluctuation of landscape metrics and semivariogram models in this study. The research area was divided into environmental functional regions (EFRs), which were defined according to the main ecological functions and protection objectives of each region. The analysis results of land use and land cover changes (LUCCs) showed that land use transfer in the past 20 years occurred mainly between woodland and cultivated land at the county scale, but this was not always the case in EFRs. The results of the landscape pattern analysis showed that landscape fragmentation, aggregation, and heterogeneity increased at the county scale during 1999–2020. Moreover, except within agricultural environmental protection areas (AEP) and living environment guaranteed areas (LEG), the degree and the speed of landscape damage decreased by 2020, and the turning point occurred in 2006–2013. The analysis results of geographical detectors showed that the digital elevation mode (DEM) and GDP were the main driving factors in most regions. At the county scale, the average explanatory power of the selected factors increased by 13.27% and 16.16% in 2006–2013 and 2013–2020, respectively. Furthermore, the study area was divided into three categories according to the intensity of human disturbance. The areas with high human disturbance need to focus on increasing land-use intensification and strengthening the development in low-slope hill regions. The areas of moderate human disturbance need to focus on improving the connectivity of ecological patches and optimizing industrial structures. Attention should be given to the monitoring of natural drivers and policy support for ecological governance in low human disturbance areas. The methods and findings in this study can provide a reference for decision-makers to formulate land-use policies, especially for integration into relevant urban planning, such as the spatial planning of national land that is being widely implemented in China.

Eco-environmental effect and driving factors of changing “production-living-ecological space” in northern Xinjiang, China

“…The transfer matrix can reflect the area of land-use types in a single static period and aids the dynamic analysis of the flow direction of land-use type transfer, source of land-use transfer, and change amount (Nie et al, 2022). The raster calculator function in the ArcGIS10.2 software is used for processing, and Excel is used to calculate and output the final result.…”

Analyzing Spatial–Temporal Characteristics and Influencing Mechanisms of Landscape Changes in the Context of Comprehensive Urban Expansion Using Remote Sensing

“…During urban expansion phases, extensive tracts of natural landscapes, agricultural lands, and forests are invariably converted into urban built environments [3][4][5][6]. Such transformations engender increased fragmentation of the erstwhile cohesive landscape patterns [7,8], resulting in the subdivision of large, natural expanses into numerous smaller segments. This process not only elevates the quantity and density of landscape patches but also augments the complexity of landscape patterns [9][10][11].…”

“…Wu et al, found that there was a significant interaction enhancement effect between natural and social factors in influencing landscape fragmentation [61]. Nie et al, found the digital elevation model (DEM) and GDP to be the main drivers of landscape patterns using Geodetectors [8]. Therefore, in contrast to studies focusing solely on the influence of individual factors [64,65], research into the combined contributions of population, economic, and natural interactions to landscape patterns merits greater attention [66,67].…”

A Functional Zoning Method in Rural Landscape Based on High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

“…Traditionally, the boundaries of rural landscapes' functional zones have been defined by administrative delineations or hand sketches [11]. However, the former approach makes it difficult to fully consider environmental factors, which may damage natural attributes [12], and limits the geospatial scale of the functional zones [13]. It will create a mismatch between functional zones and administrative zones, which will hinder the development of the region [14].…”